GCSE coursework faces axe to curb Internet cheats

Schoolchildren are to be banned from taking coursework home in a radical bid to crack down on cribbing from the Internet and coaching by pushy parents.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson said GCSE maths coursework was being scrapped altogether and projects in all other subjects would now have to be completed in school under supervision.

The announcement, which reverses years of educational doctrine, comes ahead of a report from schools watchdogs which is understood to have found evidence of widespread cheating.

It came in a policy-heavy speech by Mr Johnson in which he also threatened independent schools with being stripped of their charitable status unless they allow state school children to use their facilities.

The ambitious Education Secretary also vowed to transform the prospects for children in care, who he admitted were being 'let down' by the state.

Mr Johnson unveiled plans for a new £2,000 taxpayer-funded bursary for all children in care to help fund their university education and annual £100 top-ups to their Child Trust Funds paid by the Government.

The package of help appeared tailored to delight Labour's left and bolster support for Mr Johnson's campaign to be the party's deputy leader.

Mr Johnson told the conference that technology had changed the way children are taught but was also being used by some students 'to gain an unfair advantage'.

He added: 'After a detailed review, I can announce today that we will remove all GCSE coursework from maths, and in other subjects, coursework will be supervised.

'We have one of the most rigorous exam systems in the world - we cannot have it devalued and undermined by the few who cheat by copying from the Internet.'

Sources close to Mr Johnson said he would order exam boards to ensure that while GCSE students would still research coursework outside school, all work itself should completed in school under the watchful eye of teachers.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which has conducted a review, has identified persistent evidence of abuse, they said.

One in 20 parents admit to doing their children's coursework at GCSE level.

Coursework counts for between 20 per cent and 60 per cent of the overall marks allocated. It has been a major part of secondary school life since it was introduced in 1988, so scrapping it in one major subject and requiring supervision in all others marks a major shift.

GCSEs have become increasingly coursework-based over the years in a bid to help pupils who do less well in pressurised exam conditions.

Critics have previously argued that coursework is easier to do well in than 'sudden death' exams, as pupils can repeatedly redraft work and crib material from teachers, parents and the Internet along the way.

Several public schools, including Harrow, have adopted the maths IGCSE, similar to the scrapped O-level, after deciding that the compulsory GCSE coursework, which counts for up to one fifth of marks, was not contributing to the pupils' understanding of the subject.

Mr Johnson also announced a series of measures for the 60,000 children in care, who he conceded were being betrayed by the state.

Evidence showed they were five times less likely to pass their GCSEs and 25 times more likely to end up in prison, he said.

He promised a £2,000 bursary to help children in care go to university and new measures to ensure they are not refused entry to local schools.

The Government will also top up the Child Trust Fund - the £250 savings bond given to all children - by £100 for every year a child remains in care.

Aides made clear the package was particularly important to Mr Johnson who narrowly escaped going into care himself. Orphaned at the age of 12, Mr Johnson was raised by his elder sister Linda, then 15, in a council flat.

'Some of these children escape the most terrible abuse and neglect in their own family only to experience the chill indifference of their proxy parent - the state,' he told the conference.

'Instead of bringing them up, we let them down: bouncing them from one location to the next; dumping them in the worst schools and forcing them to fend for themselves from the tender age of 16.'

The Education Secretary risked accusations of a return to old-fashioned Labour 'class warfare' with his threat to independent schools.

He told the conference: 'Some private schools own excellent facilities, from science labs to playing fields, often underused. I want these schools to open their gates to all children in the community - surely this is what their charitable status is for.'

For more than 400 years private schools have benefited from the presumption in law that education is a charitable activity.

But Labour's new Charities Bill will require demonstrate that they are of 'public benefit' in order to justify tax advantages that are worth an estimated £88 million a year.

If they were to be stripped of their charitable status, fees would be likely to go up for thousands of parents.

Edward Gould, chairman of the Independent Schools' Council, said for every pound received in tax relief schools give away an average of £3 in fee reductions and other charitable activity.